A sly grin crept across Nathan’s face. “I got really, really wasted graduation night, and when I woke up, some sassy, sexy vixen had stolen my virginity.”

My jaw must have hit that sticky table.

“I thought we’d had a great night, but when I tried to get her number, she promised she’d never see me again,” he continued. “It kind of broke my heart. Call me a romantic, but I’d never expected my first time to be so… impersonal.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I was your first? Like, I took your virginity?”

“Yep.”

“But… you were really good.”

He blushed. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“No, I’m serious. You were sweet, like… gentle. The other guys I’ve been with just…”

“Used you?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess it goes both ways, but… you were so different.”

“I liked you. I wanted to make you happy. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but thanks for saying I was good.”

“I just…” My brain was moving too slowly. My words faltered. “You… you weren’t a virgin. There’s no way.”

“I was.”

“But you’re eighteen,” I argued. “And hot. And a boy. You can’t tell me there weren’t opportunities.”

“There were. I just didn’t take them,” he said. “I saw so many of my teammates hook up with a different girl every weekend. Sure, it sounds great, but I just wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to be that kind of guy. I was waiting for something special—maybe not love, and definitely not marriage, but someone I liked a lot, someone I could see myself with for a while.”

I felt the weight of his words sink into my stomach. He’d wanted something special, someone special. Instead he’d gotten me.

“That’s why I quit drinking,” he said. “After you left, I realized what I’d become, and I didn’t like it. So I decided to change things. Start fresh.”

“Fuck. Nathan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay.” He shrugged. This time, he did reach across the table to take my hand. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be out there getting hammered every weekend. Still driving my mother crazy. I guess I just needed someone or something to shake me up. You taught me a lesson, Whit. And sometimes I hate you for it, but… but I’m trying not to.”

“You can hate me if you want to. I’d hate me.”

“But I don’t want to,” he said. “You’re part of my family—or you will be soon—and I want it to work. I’ve put Mom and Bailey through enough, and I want them to be happy now. That’s why I try so hard to keep it bottled up, how seeing you makes me feel, but sometimes I just… I’m sorry. For some of the things I’ve said.”

“You were right, though. About me being a whore. If I hadn’t acted like such a… If I’d been different, Theo wouldn’t have—”

“Stop it,” he said. “I don’t care how you acted. What happened tonight wasn’t your fault.”

“You weren’t there.”

“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault, Whitley. And you’re not a whore.”

I didn’t say anything. I just stared at Nathan’s hand on mine for a long moment. I’d done to him essentially the same thing that senior boy had done to me when I was fifteen. I’d used him and abandoned him and taken something from him. But instead of regressing like I had, falling into the habits and giving up on people and happiness and anything good, Nathan had worked to turn himself around, to change everything, no matter what people thought.

If he were a drug addict, I would have been his rock bottom.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For trying not to hate me.”

CHAPTER 19

Sylvia knocked on the guest room door the next morning. For once, she didn’t wake me up. I hadn’t been able to sleep much that night, between the coffee and the terrifying memories of Theo. And staying up all night had only made the hangover worse. This one was on par with the one I’d had the morning after graduation.

“We need to have a talk,” Sylvia said as soon as I pulled open the door.

“Okay,” I said, letting her inside.

I wasn’t wearing skimpy pajamas this time. After what had happened last night, I’d felt the need to be fully covered. I was wearing baggy sweats and an ancient T-shirt, and it still didn’t feel like enough.

“I heard Nathan leave last night,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “To pick you up at three am. I thought you were staying over at Harrison’s.”

“I was supposed to.”

I eased myself back onto the bed. Pain shot through my head, and I winced.

“Change of plans?”

“You could say that.”

“Whitley,” Sylvia groaned, running her hands through her hair. “Look, I don’t want to be the wicked stepmother. I know what it’s like to have a stepmom you hate—my stepmother treated my sister and me like we were juvenile delinquents. I don’t want to be like that, but now you’ve clearly got a hangover, and you had Nathan out early in the morning—”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I just can’t go through this again,” she went on. At first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I remembered Nathan’s confession. He’d said he made her crazy for years. “I don’t want you to hate me, but I can’t do this. I can’t let my daughter be around this kind of behavior.”

“I know. Like I said, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, okay?”

“My question is why you had Nathan bring you home,” she said. “You were loud in the hallway this morning. If you were going to get drunk, why didn’t you stay at Harrison’s? You knew I’d be upset if I noticed.”

My body tensed, feeling Theo’s ghost fingers on my skin when she asked. I let out a breath, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I told her. “Are you going to punish me?”

She frowned. “Whitley, did something happen last night at Harrison’s?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” I knew my voice had risen a little too high, that my words were cracking a little too much. But I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t admit what had happened with Theo. I was too angry with myself, too sure it was my fault. For drinking too much, for following him, for letting everyone think I was a slut, even if I hadn’t done as much as people wanted to believe. I’d set myself up for what happened last night.

“Okay,” she said. “If you change your mind… Well, anyway, there’s something else I want to talk to you about. Nathan showed me the Facebook page last night while you were out.”

“God,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “It’s not… The stuff they’re saying on there—I didn’t do most of it. I mean, I’m not sleeping with all those—”

“I believe you,” she said. “I’m not here to call you out on it. I’m just making sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Sure, I’m fine.”

“I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you right now,” she said. “Or with that web page. But if this… Do you think this is cyber-bullying?”

I rolled my eyes. “Christ, no. It’s just stupid rumors.” Cyber-bullying. The word felt so dramatic, like the kind of thing you might see on Oprah or Dateline or something. I wasn’t one of those crying girls who’d been tortured by my classmates. I didn’t even know these people.

“Are you sure?” She was dead serious about this. “Whitley, if this is getting to you, I need you to tell me. There’s legal action we can take. Cyber-bullying can be very damaging.”

Damaging. I wondered if Theo would have touched me if he hadn’t seen that page, those pictures. I hugged myself tighter.

“It’s nothing. I mean, I don’t even use Facebook, so what do I care? Just leave it alone, okay? My dad’s a local celebrity. People are always going to talk, right?”

She sighed. “Okay—if you’re sure. But if this gets worse, if you feel like it turns into bullying at any time—”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.” She started to stand up.

“Um, Sylvia?” I hesitated. “Has Dad said anything about it? The Facebook page?”

“I’m not even sure if he knows,” she said. “Maybe it was wrong of me, but I didn’t show him. I didn’t know if you’d want him to see.”

When the photos first came out, I hadn’t wanted him to see them. But he had to have. I tried to tell myself that he’d untagged himself only yesterday, that he didn’t check Facebook often, that if Sylvia cared enough to talk to me, surely he’d be up here in a few hours, too.

So I waited. After Sylvia left, repeatedly telling me that I could come to her if I needed to, I sat in my room and waited for Dad to come. I watched from the window as his car pulled into the driveway after work, heard the front door shut when he came in. I thought he’d come up soon.

Trace called me that afternoon while I was still upstairs, hoping Dad would come.

“Have you talked to Mom lately?”

“No.”

“You should call her,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because she’s your mother,” he said, exasperated. “But also because she called me the other day and told me how much she misses you right now.”

“She misses having someone to bitch to.” I snorted. “Not me.”

Trace sighed. “You’re too hard on her. I mean… Okay, I don’t live with her. I know that. I know she fucked up a lot. But she loves you, and it just kills me to see you putting Dad up on a pedestal when he’s just as bad as she is.”

“He is not,” I argued. “At least Dad’s fun to be around.” Not that he’s around often anymore.

“He uses you as a drinking buddy, Whitley,” Trace said. “You grill burgers with him, and you drink together and hang out on the beach and drink together and, oh yeah, drink together. Whatever; I’m fine with a parent allowing his kid to drink at home, but the way you talk about your summers together, it sounds like he’s more of your brother than your dad.”